The Mirror and the Window: The Seduction of Innocence and Gothic Coming of Age in Låt Den Rätte Komma In/Let The Right One In. Issue 1 (1st May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Howell, Amanda
• Is Part Of: Gothic studies. Volume 18:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 70
• Publication Date: 2016-05-01
• Subjects: child -- gender -- Gothic -- seduction -- sex -- uncanny -- vampire; Gothic revival (Literature) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Gothic fiction (Literary genre) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Goth culture (Subculture) -- Periodicals; 809.38729
• DOI: 10.7227/GS.0005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-7937

Abstract

Abstract : Swedish film Låt Den Rätte Komma In/Let the Right One In turns away from the representations of sexual threat and desire that have long typified – and currently dominate – vampire fiction and film, a significant generic, narrative, and aesthetic shift. Yet, while the film deliberately cuts sex from its story of love between a boy and a vampire, seduction is still key to its representation of vampirism, as the film plays, as is typical of gothic fiction more generally, upon our cultural investments in innocence.